Finland plans to give every citizen 800 euros a month and scrap benefits

It’s a great headline, so I copied it. Much Like the Independant now there is no detail. Don’t blame me

I could live in the Philippines on 800 euro a month but only if I never went out, only ate rice only used the electricity for 2 lightbulbs and the internet was switched off.

Is that the Independent or The Daily Mail I cant tell from the comments section.

We have 70m people thereabouts. £500 a month would be £35bn/m or £420bn pa. considering the current bill is approx £200bn pa including the state pension, I cannot see it happening here.

Doesn’t quite seem to work for me. Does this apply to children? Does this replace pensions? I can’t believe that the Finnish spend that much on their benefits.

How can it possibly work .500 quid is not going to pay my old mans, water electric and rates a month let alone his food and drink bills If you have a house of 10 kids and 2 adults 6 grand a month yep that would work.

Worth noting that this is only a proposal atm, and a long way from being implemented. If it comes to pass it’ll replace housing benefit, the equivalent of tax credits, state pensions and most of the other social security provided to the poor or unemployed. And students. From what I’ve read it would only be available for Finnish citizens, so I’m shit out of luck. :frowning:

Kela is basically Finland’s social security agency, so they’re running the numbers. Given that you can’t exactly have a lot of homeless people when it’s -30deg outside for 4 months a year, and that there’s a general acceptance that unemployment rates will continue to be high in the future (jobs removed by automation, heavy industry in decline) then it’s not a surprise that they’d actually look for the most creative/cost effective way to provide social security. :wink:

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I wonder what the people in Finland who are currently on welfare would stand to lose, and whether it’s going to work out more or less expensive for them. This is a policy that the Green Party is keen on as well, but I personally don’t see how this works either…

It works by high taxation, something this Country will never consider, shame as I wouldn’t mind paying more for a fairer society.
This Country is a halfway house for tax, we get by but basically have average infrastructure, roads and hospitals etc etc.

Taxation here is progressive. If you’re a high earner, you pay more. I’m actually paying less tax than I would in the UK atm as I’m earning fuck all.

But, there’s no council tax. Heating is free in most areas. Water is free. Electricity is cheaper. Internet is free for 10mbps (it’s a human right by law) although I’m paying 13e for 100mbps. Public transport is very high quality and probably a 3rd of the price that you’d pay in the UK. Most employees belong to a union by default, collective bargaining is still protected. Holidays are protected. Child care is cheap and every where. The list goes on…

There are fixed charages around hospital and doctors visits, but they’re capped, so not as good as the UK. VAT is basically the same as the rest of Europe, so some things are randomly more expensive. Imported stuff definitely gets pricey. There’s a bit less variety compared to the UK cos there’s not the massive influx of American companies (Burger King got here last year). There’s not a 24 hour Tesco. But tbh, about the only thing I’m getting stung on right now is the price of games, which are stupid money here for some reason. Oh, and the bacon is that fucking american stringy shit. That’s definitely not good enough.

I’ve done the sums, though. I pay less to live here than I did when I was in Scotland, and by all measurable terms I’d say my quality of life has improved markedly. It’s not perfect, nothing is, but I’d much rather live under this tax system and get stung when I’m minted than struggle when I’m skint.

And I wouldn’t say the UK has ‘average’ infrastructure. It’s pretty fucking shite really.